Time-travel story promoting rayon lingerie.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Lamont-Clemens, Inc.
Sponsor: Manhattan Undergarment Co.
Audio/Visual: Sd, C
Keywords: Fashion: Industry; Media: Television; Synthetics

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Spuzz - - July 27, 2005
Subject: We're going to have to ask you to leave.
OK, once again, you just dont know what the heck youre going to view next in Ricks Fun Film Factory, and this film about rayon fabric, just goes beyond the mere bizarre and jets off into delirious territory.

This awful movie takes its time getting there though. The film bizarrely starts off with the main character named Molly as a kid womdering about the man shell marry, fast forward to her marriage to the curiously playmobil shellacked haired Bob. Fast forward again to them living in somewhat happy domesticity. I say somewhat because Molly is forced to wear older fashions, she hasnt a thing to wear, and all the silk is so expensive! Honestly, why all of this backstory? It's not needed at all!
After putting her kid to bed, the loonieness really kicks in when all of a sudden a dream voice or something leads our lead character into the future (oh yeah, this film takes place in the 1920's) soon she's at a department store getting into, well, a lengthy conversation about why Bur-Mil fabrics are so much better than all the others. Such a conversation today would probably get you thrown out. Anyways, soon after more conversation about this wonder fabric comes the REAL gaga moment, and one of the better Prelinger moments on here. She goes to a huge soundstage IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE (well it's a dream, so ok), where there's a fashion show, featuring a bride (who happens to be Molly!) and soon she's sat on a throne (??) and the host of show blurts out the theme of this fashion show is LINGERIE! So all the models strip down to their skivvies and uhhh start showing them off. And THEN, (there's more) younger, like 16-17 year olds I think, start showing off THEIR lingerie. Holy cow! The whole thing ends when Molly wakes up, wow, why can't I have dreams like that?

The production level of this is VERY strange. The color is just a wee bit odd.. The women (including the young girls) are all wearing too red lipstick in almost every shot, and the whole thing is mostly out of focus.

Perfect for a MUST SEE on this site! This (especially the second half) has to be seen to be believed.

Reviewer: Wilford B. Wolf - - March 27, 2005
Subject: Perfectly Faggoted Seams
Oddly charming, yet surreal film promoting Burlington Mills ("Bur-Mil") rayon garments. The film opens in 1912 with a young Molly dreaming of the perfect husband. Move forward 3 years, and we see Molly and Bob get married and then come back from their honeymoon.

Finally, we move to 1920. Molly is now happily married and she has a little girl. The girl is reading Cinderella, and Molly is wearing a dress to go out to a dance. Molly is disappointed because her plain cotton dress is not as rich as the silks and satins some of the other ladies are wearing, but she is unable to afford. Bob tries to comfort her, but she is resigned to not being able to buy the best looking clothes.

When Molly tells her little girl a bedtime story about her hopes she had for her marriage, she falls asleep. It is at this point, things become weird. The "Spirit Of The Future" visits Molly and promises to show her the future of fabrics that she dreamed of on the condition that she does not reveal that she is from 1920. Molly is then transported to a department store of the future (that is c. 1941), and is shown all of the marvels of rayon. The sales people run through all of the marketing speak about the durability, quality and care of "Bur-Mil" rayon, while the disembodied spirit occasionally admonishing Molly for to revealing she's from 1920.

After a saleperson at the the blouses counter gives a rather detailed explaination of the care and the differences in cost between various rayon garments, the Spirit has Molly go to a televised fashion show "in the Strasophere Room." The dream-like logic of the department store sequence is turned up another notch, by having Molly watch herself as a bride in the fashion show for slips (!). Her husband Bob is the MC. While the narrator for the fashion show goes on and on about the quality of the slips and their "faggoted seams", in the end the Molly on stage reveals to MC-Bob that she's from 1920 and is sent back, doomed by the Spirit to remember fashions of the things to come.

A rather strange way to promote fabrics, but well done and still rather beautiful footage of 1940s fashions and early TV equipment.

Shotlist

Promotes Bur-Mil Rayon Fabrics (at great length).
Betty Furness who runs a fashion show
Storyline: (1912) Two little girls fantasize about their clothes and husbands. Wedding takes place. Girl is born. Headline: WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE WINS. Wife sews a dress for a dance. She starts crying: "I guess the style is alright, but the material it's so thin, dull, lifeless." Bob offers to buy her one of those imported Paris numbers. Wife longs for "fabrics of the future," as seen in magazine ads. Little girl missing most four front teeth. Mother telling story to little girl, story of the prince coming to take her away.
The woman is transported into the future where she sees a department store full clothing in rayon fabrics that she oohs and aahs over.
Much discussion of tests given to rayon; tensile strength color fastness, wear etc.
Early example of CBS live television broadcast (early 1940's), Betty Furness appears to host live fashion show. CBS announcers and cameras.
How to wash rayon. Models do various kinds of calisthenics which show their slips don't "ride up" on them. models lounge in lingerie
bridal kiss


weddings mother daughter girls suffrage women rayon fabric sewing dresses models lingerie
bridal kisses clothing underwear
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